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Dispatches from Beirut
by Jessie Deeter
Excerpts:
Freelancing from Lebanon sounded romantic and slightly daring when Anne and I, fellow journalism graduate students, conceived the idea over three glasses of wine in a San Francisco bar. We envisioned ourselves courting big newspapers and wowing them with our trilingual talents while securing exclusive access to high-ranking officials. The reality of those two months was nothing like the visions of Peter Jennings and his handlers that danced in our heads.
During the eight months preceding our trip, we figured out our lodging, our internships with two local newspapers and our rough expenses. We felt confident that we were nothing if not prepared. But when we called our prearranged host family from Paris three days before landing in Beirut, we learned that they were having an unexpected deluge of family guests who took precedence over us, even if we would have been paying guests. It was a sign of things to come . . .
